


Scent of the Ocean

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-04
Updated: 2009-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne had never been much into book learning. He was a hands-on, practical kind of man. He learned by doing, he remembered by being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scent of the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Fall Challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/rayne_shippers/1231338.html) at the LJ community "rayne_shippers." I received prompt #26 - Aroma.

Jayne had never been much into book learning. Letters were backward or sideways, and they didn't reveal anything he didn't already know. He knew that he was oldest of seven, his mother was getting older and more tired, and his father would need help at the docks. The teachers tried their best, but anything out of a book just didn't make sense to him. He was a hands-on, practical kind of man. He learned by doing, he remembered by being. So it really wasn't any surprise when he went to the docks with his father, when he took up a gun and learned how to shoot. Jayne could still remember the scent of the gun oil, the weight of the parts in his hands and the report of the gun. The recoil had been easy enough to compensate for, but he hadn't been expecting the noise. He found that most things were difficult for him to remember, especially anything with letters or numbers. But the scent of things he remembered well. He could remember the scent of his father's aftershave mixed with sweat and hemp. He remembered the scent of fresh baked bread. He remembered the scent of fresh earth from the graves he helped his father dig for his sisters. He remembered the smell of blood from his first kill, the smell of money right after as he got paid for being a merc.

Some people had visual memory. He had olfactory memory.

It was probably silly, but he could almost smell fear. It was this bitter, metallic tang in the air, an almost cloying sensation that tried to dull his senses. Usually he would focus on that scent, follow it back to the source, and take care of it. Knocking out the most fearful one was easy, and it eliminated that metallic scent. Sometimes that made it worse, in that everyone else on the job would instantly become afraid. But most of the time in those instances they backed away, so it wasn't as bad.

Reavers were another matter. On Miranda, surrounded by the scent of the dead and everyone's fear, the Reavers had come. They were merciless and psychotic, aggressive to everything that moved. The scent that clung to them was different, not one that Jayne really wanted to think on afterward. It wasn't even rage; he knew full well what that was like, and knew how to guard against that.

Funny how the moonbrain had been after. She had stood there, axes dripping blood, smelling of sweat and obedience. There was nothing of the rage or fear or crazy, nothing of the frightened girl she had been before declaring it was her turn. She simply was, and her scent was clean and uncomplicated for the first time.

Maybe that was why he started noticing her.

She was lithe and slim and smelled like girl. But there was something else there, something under the soap and drugs her brother still shot her up with. There was something about that was different, a perfume he couldn't quite name that he hadn't noticed about her before.

She walked about the ship with her bare feet as before. She moved like a ghost through the boat in the middle of the night. She spoke cryptically as before. She wore these shapeless sacks of dresses as before. But her scent was different, her eyes were different, and he wasn't as afraid of her as he was before. He should have been _more_ afraid, if anything, because this little slip of a girl had taken him down and had killed dozens of Reavers all by her lonesome. How could he be assured that she wouldn't do it all over again, right? Only, she had responded to Mal's command to stand down. She would have felled as many of the Alliance as she could if he hadn't, she would have done whatever she could for them until that order came. She was a warrior, a weapon, a Reader.

Maybe that was the source of the scent. Maybe that was River growing into her other roles, becoming something other than a betrayed _mei mei._

One night, Jayne thought he could smell the sea, hemp rope and his father's aftershave one evening. Brows knit in concern, he put aside the weapons magazine he had been reading and climbed up out of his bunk. There it was, the briny scent of the sea, the aroma of home he had never found since. What the _gorram_ hell was it doing on Serenity in the middle of the night?

Following the scent to the kitchen, Jayne saw River standing over a pot on the counter. She didn't even look up as he came into the room in nothing but a tank top and boxers. "What're you doin'?" he asked, confused. The scent of the sea was strongest here, so intense he almost thought he was back home helping his father at the docks.

River looked up, eyes large and luminous. "Your thoughts are the most peaceful at this juncture," she began in a matter of fact tone. "And even then, they are most calm when there is the scent of the sea. I do not have this same sense of placidity, so I sought to replicate it."

Jayne sighed and rubbed his jaw tiredly. "Say again? Simpler?"

"The others aren't calm anymore. I try to keep my thoughts to myself, but sometimes it's difficult. They're quiet enough until they look at me, until they remember Miranda." She looked at him intently, her head cocked to the side. "Except for you. When you look at me, your thoughts are still, calm waters of a deep ocean." River gestured to the pot. "I thought this would help me."

"Oh." He leaned against the counter in front of her and took in a deep breath. It was just like the sea, just like that last day he had told the foreman where to stick it, he was heading out to the black to make more in a day than he had in a month. He'd never come back home since.

"Is it incorrect? Your frown seems to indicate that the recipe is somewhat lacking."

Jayne looked up at her from the pot. "That's what it smells like."

"So where is the difficulty?"

"There's too many memories," he told her simply. He could understand wanting peace. He could understand needing a sense of calm, especially if she was the one that damaged it. "I smell that, I think of a lot of things. It's all jumbled up, some good and some bad."

"So it isn't the aroma that calms you? It's the memories that are invoked?" Jayne nodded and gave a half shrug. "I can't seem to recall any memories that are serene enough to counter the thoughts that the others invoke in myself."

Jayne hadn't thought he would ever see River look so lost and forlorn as she did that moment. "What'cha talkin' 'bout? Your brother said things were happy enough when you were younger."

"I am not that girl any longer. I haven't any memories that are pleasant in _this_ lifetime."

He had to have been half asleep or something. It was really the only logical explanation for what he did next.

He kissed her. On the mouth.

She looked at him afterward, mouth parted in surprise, the scent of the sea clinging to her hair. She had tasted like salt and that vague new scent that was becoming the new River scent. Her smile was slow and shy, a young woman awakening from a deep sleep. "That's a pleasant memory."

"Huh. Yeah. So." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Yeah. That."

River smiled, a little more sure, and touched his arm. She pulled down his arm, her fingers trailing down along it until she reached his wrist. "You have many pleasant memories with the ocean."

"I reckon so," Jayne replied, guarded. "I grew up near it."

"I've been once, but I wasn't allowed to swim in it. My nanny wasn't willing to risk my parents firing her for allowing such a thing."

"Well, this is how it smells," he said, realizing it was obvious and likely something to reinforce her perception that he was stupid.

Her smile was soft and friendly; odd how he'd never known she was capable of something like that before. When she reached out for him, Jayne didn't move back in fear. She touched the back of his hand, her touch gentle. "You carry the ocean within your skin," she said, voice soft. "The memory is a ghost you carry with you." She was closer than he remembered, maybe a half step away from him. "Thank you for sharing this calm with me."

He returned the smile, almost hesitantly. "You're welcome. Just... Don't mention it or nothing, huh? It's better they think I'm an unfeeling bastard."

She danced away from him, laughing. "Most certainly, even if I don't agree with your assessment. Keep the ocean in the pot. I have determined the optimal mix of salts and essential oils to recreate the scent of the ocean at any time I wish. May you dream of fonder times."

He stared after her, wondering what just happened. She had seemed almost sane, which was a scary thought.

He managed to carefully carry the pot down into his bunk and place it where he could smell it and hide it easily if someone came looking for it. River had given him the sea, and he wasn't about to share.

 

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End file.
